

I recently encountered these sentences which must be nonsense because AはBだ
means 'A is B'.

> 私は１０５号室だ
>
> 「ノルウェーの森」は村上春樹だ
>
> 東京は初めてだ


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question
particle-は copula は-and-が subjects topic
Nonsense sentences with だ


These make sense.

私は１０５号室だ -- I'm in room 105.

東京は初めてだ -- It was the first time in Tokyo.

「ノルウェーの森」は村上春樹だ -- [The author of] Norwegian Wood is Haruki Murakami.

Technically, the meaning could be something different. These sentences sound
like answers to question.

So, you have to imagine what kind of question was asked.

For 私は１０５号室だ, it would seem that the speaker was asked which room they were
in, or which office is theirs, or something similar.

For 東京は初めてだ, this could be the response to a great variety of questions. This
could be a question about a trip you took. This could be a question about
where and when the 1964 Olympics took place.

For「ノルウェーの森」は村上春樹だ, you could imagine a question like "Who is the author of
Norwegian Wood and Kitchen?" The person asked may not know who the author of
Kitchen is but they know that Haruki Murakmai is the author of Norwegian Wood.

AはBだ doesn't technically mean "A is B". It marks "A" as the topics and then
tells you something about "A" which is "B".


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answer


> ... which must be nonsense because AはBだ means 'A is B'.

It's not always appropriate to parse such sentences in this fashion.

The topic marker は does not always mark the **subject** of the sentence, the
substantive that is directly tied to the verb: sometimes it is instead marking
the **topic** , the outermost context of the current phrase. In 「私は１０５号室だ」,
the 「私」 is not the _subject_ , which would be directly tied to the copular
phrase 「１０５号室だ」, and instead this is the _topic_. A better translation (in
terms of better illustrating the meaning) might be:

> **私は** １０５号室だ  
>  → **As for me** , it is room 105.

What the "it" is in the English is context-dependent: perhaps the speaker has
been asked where they are, or where they think something is located, etc.

An example I've seen crop up multiple times is the sentence 「私はウナギです。」 If we
parse 「私」 as the **subject** , this becomes _" I am an eel."_ This might be
the correct interpretation -- but that would require a very specific context.
A more likely scenario is that the speaker is at a restaurant, and is either
ordering, or telling the server which dish is theirs -- in which case, the 「私」
is the **topic** , further distanced (grammatically, semantically) from the
verb, and a more correct translation would be _" As for me, it [my order] is
the eel."_ More idiomatically, _" For me, the eel"_, or even _" I've got / I'm
getting the eel."_

When evaluating sentences like 「AはBです」, consider whether it makes sense for
「A」 to be the **subject** , or the **topic**.


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answer